Process of making manganese and ferromanganese.



,ANSON GARDNER BETTS, or TRoY, NEW "YORK.

Pnoonsson MAKING MANGANESE nn; rnanomaiiesnnsn.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Dec 1,1908.

Application filed February 21, 1908. Serial No. 417,162.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Anson GARDNER Bn'r'rs, a citizen of the United States, residing at Troy, in the county of Rensselaer' and State of New York,have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Processes of Making Manganese and Ferromanganese, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to the recovery of manganese from ores and metallurgical slags. The object of my invention is to recover manganese cheaply from ores and'slags, collecting any precious metals present separately from the manganese, and preparing manganese subsequently in a state of greater or less purity. These objects are achievedby smelting the raw material being treated in a smelting furnace, collecting any precious metals or any copper or lead as a matte or bullion, and fractionally precipitating from the slag first mainly iron and then mainly manganese by treating the slag with metallic silicon, or a silicid or other reduction-product of silica. In this way the manganese and iron contents may be recovered separately to a great extent.

In the practice of my present invention, as applied to manganese ores, I add the ore preferably to the charge of a copper or lead smelting furnace, and then recover theJnanganese from the resulting slag.

The slags are treated preferably by running them into a suitable furnace or forehearth to which is also continuously added silicon, or a silicid, or other suitable reduction-product of silicon, in quantity sufficient toremove the iron, and a small part of the manganese. The resulting slag is then further treated in the same manner in another furnace with a further quantity of silicon, etc., to separate *thenianganese.

By using a quantity of silicon, etc., insufficient to precipitate all the iron from the slag in the first treatment, the manganese may be made to contain various amounts of iron.

to include alloys of silicon, and silicids, and by'the words metallic manganese I mean to include manganese alloys.

What I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. The process of. making metallic manganese which consists in treating a slag containing iron and manganese with a reduction product of silica, and precipitating iron thereby, and further treating the slag with a reduction-product of silica, and thereby separating manganese from the slag.

2. The process ofmaking metallic mhnganese which consists in treating a slag containing iron and manganese with silicon, and precipitating iron thereby, and further treating the slag with a further quantity of 1 silicon, and thereby separating manganese from the slag.

3. The process of making manganese from manganese ores which con fists in separatin precious metalstherefrom by smelting, an separating manganese from the resulting slag by reacting-thereon with silicon.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto signed my name in the presence of two subscribing witnesses. 1

ANSON GARDNER BETTS. Witnesses: l FREDERICK CLAnK,

WALTER B. BARNHISELV In the claims by the word silicon I mean 

